Computing devices are used by individuals for personal, work-related, and other purposes. These computing devices are offered in various platforms, including desktop computers, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, wearable computing devices, cellular telephones, music or media players, or tablet computers, among other types. Some computing devices, particularly those used for work-related purposes, can be subject to one or more management policies. In that context, a company might wish to retain control over one or more aspects of the operation of devices that are used by the company's users. For example, the company might have a policy that restricts the use of company-issued computing devices for personal matters. To enforce such a policy, the company might wish to restrict the types of applications that can be installed on their devices. As another example, the company might have a policy that restricts user access to certain content or data files using third party applications.
As one way to administer and manage devices, a company may rely upon enterprise mobility management (EMM). EMM can encompass the managed distribution of applications to mobile devices, the configuration and distribution of settings for mobile devices, and the oversight of operating conditions for mobile devices. EMM can be administered across an entire enterprise of mobile or other types of computing devices by a centralized management platform. By controlling and protecting data, configuration, application, and other settings for mobile devices using a centralized EMM platform, EMM can reduce risk and exposure for a company while saving information technology costs and downtime. To some extent, EMM relies upon a network connection with mobile devices to identify and update certain operating parameters and conditions of the devices over time. In some cases, however, network connections are unavailable or fail.
Moreover, an enterprise may provide various apps that perform tasks. A managed version of the application can be provided for managed devices, and an unmanaged version of the same application can also be available. An issue can arise when a user is supposed to install and use the managed version of an application, but instead installs the unmanaged version or both an unmanaged version and the managed version. In this situation, the enterprise managing a device might not be able to detect that the device includes an unmanaged version of the application due to not being able to detect whether a particular version of an application is managed or unmanaged. For example, a device might have to communicate with a management server to determine whether a particular application is managed or unmanaged, but the network connection might be unavailable. As a result, the enterprise might not be able to perform administrative functions, such as removing the unmanaged application.